Wednesday, October 19, 2011

These bacon ranch chicken skewers were intended to star at your next football tailgate cookout, but since these are made with sharp, wooden sticks, they could be used to inflict the true death to smaller, slow-moving vampires at your Halloween party as well.

Regardless of your party’s theme, these tasty chicken skewers are easy, interesting, and incredibly adaptable. As I sometimes do when showing a new technique, I’ve kept this recipe ultra-simple, and only used ranch dressing and hot pepper as my marinade.

I was hoping that as you watched, your mind would be racing with ideas on how to make this already delicious meat-on-a-stick even more amazing. This is the kind of thing you could do a different version for every game of the season, and still not run out of ideas!

The part I hope you follow exactly is how to weave the bacon over the chicken. Using this method, you really get two kind of bacon. The exposed bacon gets beautifully caramelized and crisp, while the meat next to the chicken stays soft and fatty, more like a thin slice of pork belly.

Speaking of thin slices, don’t use extra-thick slab bacon for this. It will not cook before the chicken is overdone. I actually like to use the thinner, extra-lean bacon, as it has just the right about of fat to flavor and moisturize, without starting a raging fire on the grill. Anyway, next time you’re planning a game day tailgate buffet, I hope you give these a try. Enjoy!

I made these tonight -- beautiful fall day in Iowa (we don't have many left before it gets cold), so I figured that we had better take advantage of it. I grilled some Johnsonville brats just for good measure, but nobody ate them. Perfect amount of spice from the Sambal, nice smokiness from the bacon, accentuated by the smoke from the grill. Thanks for another perfect recipe!

I would love to know what you did for that side dish! I'm going to try this recipe tomorrow. I'll try to copy the side, but you tend to have a secret here and there. :) Keep up the awesome videos! You inspire me to cook every time I watch! Thank you for working so hard for us!

Really nice recipe. You've made dinner time a whole lot more fun chef John. I am going to put more onion in it, they tasted really good with everything. Chicken was juicy and nice flavor. Used sambal chili with the ranch. Good good good.

I was invited over at a friend's barbecue the other day, he served something similar to this. Instead of chicken breasts he used cubes of salt-pepper-nutmeg-paprika rubbed pork tenderloin (I'm guessing on the spices, it's what I think I tasted). "Crucification of Pig" he called it, as the second piece of tenderloin was three times the length of the others.

This recipe was delicious I added pineapple chunks since I love pineapples. I cooked it in the oven instead since I don't have a grill and then finished it up on broiler. Husband and I loved it will make for next football game. Also I will probably add more hot sauces I like a kick to my chicken. Thanks for all the great recipes.